[kylehotchkiss]

Ahh New York, let me tell you how Californians get around this without needing a “fake plate”:

* just take it off completely, who’s checking?

* thick black plastic license plate cover. Everybody’s got them.

* front plate optional!

* buy one of those “digital” license plates and just set it to show the car logo instead of ID. Teslas do it!

I’m just kidding by the way, California really needs to fix this problem too. The punishment for fake plates needs to be having the plate number ground on to your roof or something else permanent and embarrassing. Maybe welding a transponder to your engine block.

[ZoomerCretin]

From what I've seen on twitter, all of these things are already present in New York, especially among the openly corrupt placard class, the people who purchase traffic law immunity from the NYPD.

Not that anyone was enforcing traffic or parking violations in the city anyway. They have a citizen reporting system, and many violations get marked "Completed" within minutes, despite nothing ever being done about it.

[hedora]

I feel I should point out that California has been installing license plate readers and using them for bulk surveillance databases for a long time.

A bit over a decade ago, I counted two to four such mandatory checkpoints on my commute depending on the route I took. So, somewhere in a government database, they have a log of when I went to and returned from work that year.

I’ve heard such databases go back decades and are widely used to blackmail politicians in the DC area. (Source, a rando that had had a few drinks claimed to work for the state dept. Even if they were full of it, the capability exists.)

[fragmede]

Use of the database is not theoretical, though this was in New York rather than California.

https://gizmodo.com/rekor-ai-system-analyzes-driving-pattern...

[grecy]

Just take the vehicle. Permanently. Sell it and put the money into food banks